Financial Times: HIV pool adds to pressure on drug groups
Dans UNITAIDArticle by Andrew Jack in Financial Times (15 December 2009)
Nine western pharmaceutical companies face fresh pressure to ease control over their HIV medicines following the establishment of an international mechanism designed to increase treatment access in the developing world.
The board of Unitaid, the French-backed health funding agency, voted on Tuesday to create a “patent pool” to increase the freedom of rival companies to combine and sell almost 20 antiretroviral drugs to provide greater help to patients in poor countries.
Philippe Douste-Blazy, chairman of Unitaid’s executive board, said: “This is an historic day. Unitaid has now put in place a mechanism that will make medical advances work for the poor while compensating companies for sharing their technology.”
[…]
